Robert Alter - 101 Mystery Stories

“Excuse me,” I said. I went out to the hallway and opened the door.

She came boiling in like a hurricane, pushing past me and shouting, “Where is she? Where is the hussy?”

I followed her into the living room, where Fraser was standing and gaping at her in some astonishment as she continued to shout and to demand to know where she was.

I said, “Madame, please. This happens to be my home.”

“Oh, does it?” She stood in front of me, hands on hips. “Well then, you can tell me where I’ll find the Wilson woman.”

“Who?”

“Diane Wilson, the little tramp. I want to—”

I said, “I am Diane Wilson.”

She stood there, open-mouthed, gaping at me.

Fraser came over then, smiling a bit, saying, “Excuse, me, Miss Wilson, I think I know what’s happened.” He turned to the new visitor and said, “You’re Mrs. Cunningham, aren’t you?”

Still open-mouthed, she managed to nod her head.

Fraser identified himself, and said, “I made the same mistake you did — I came here expecting to find some vamp. But as you can see—” And he gestured at me.

“Oh, I am sorry,” Mrs. Cunningham said to me. She was a striking woman in her late thirties. “I called the insurance company, and when they told me Ed had changed all his policies over to you, I naturally thought — well — you know.”

“Oh, dear,” I said. “I certainly hope you don’t think—”

“Oh, not at all,” Mrs. Cunningham said, and smiled a bit, and patted my hand. “I wouldn’t think that of vow,” she said.

Fraser said, “Mrs. Cunningham, didn’t your husband tell you he was changing the beneficiary?”

“He certainly didn’t,” she said with sudden anger. “And neither did that company of yours. They should have told me the minute Ed made that change.”

Fraser developed an icy chill. “Madame,” he said, “a client has the right to make anyone he chooses his beneficiary, and the company is under no obligation to inform anyone that—”

“Oh, that’s all right,” I said. “I don’t need the money. I’m perfectly willing to share it with Mrs. Cunningham.”

Fraser snapped around to me, saying, “Miss Wilson, you aren’t under any obligation at all to this woman. The money is legally and rightfully yours.” As planned, he was now 100 percent on my side.

Now it was time to make him think more kindly of Mrs. Cunningham. I said, “But this poor woman has been treated shabbily. She was married to Mr. Cunningham for — how many years?”

“Twelve,” she said, “twelve years,” and abruptly sat down on the sofa and began to sob.

“There, there,” I said, patting her shoulder.

“What am I going to do? ” she wailed. “I have no money, nothing! he left me nothing but debts! I can’t even afford a decent burial for him!”

“We’ll work it out,” I assured her. “Don’t you worry, we’ll work it out.” I looked at Fraser and said, “How long will it take to get the money?”

He said, “Well, we didn’t discuss whether you want it in installments or in a lump sum. Monthly payments are usually—”

“Oh, a lump sum,” I said. “There’s so much to do right away, and then my older brother is a banker in California. He’II know what to do.”

“If you’re sure—” He was looking at Mrs. Cunningham, and didn’t yet entirely trust her.

I said, “Oh, I’m sure this poor woman won’t try to cheat me, Mr. Fraser.”

Mrs. Cunningham cried, “Oh God!” and wailed into her handkerchief.

“Besides,” I said, “I’ll phone my brother and have him fly east at once. He can handle everything for me.”

“I suppose,” he said, “if we expedite things, we could have your money for you in a few days.”

“I’ll have my brother call you,” I said.

“Fine,” he said. He hesitated, holding his briefcase. “Mrs. Cunningham, are you coming along? Is there anywhere I can drop you?”

“Let the woman rest here a while,” I said. “I’ll make her some tea.”

“Very well.”

He left reluctantly. I walked him to the front door, where he said to me, quietly, “Miss Wilson, do me a favor.”

“Of course, Mr. Fraser.”

“Promise me you won’t sign anything until your brother gets here to advise you.”

“I promise,” I said, sighing.

“Well,” he said, “one more item and I’m done.”

“Mr. Roche, you mean?”

“Right. I’ll talk to him, if I can find him. Not that it’s necessary.” He smiled and said goodbye and walked away down the hall.

I closed the door, feeling glad he didn’t think it necessary to talk to Roche. He would have found it somewhat difficult to talk to Roche, since Roche was in the process of being buried under the name of Edward Cunningham, his charred remains in the burned-out real estate office having been identified under that name by Mrs. Edward Cunningham.

Would Roche have actually pushed that charge of embezzlement he’d been shouting about? Well, the question was academic now, though three months ago it had seemed real enough to cause me to set up this hasty and desperate — but, I think, rather ingenious — plan for getting myself out of the whole mess entirely. The only question had been whether or not our deep-freeze would preserve the body sufficiently over the three months of preparation, but the fire had settled that problem, too.

I went back into the living room. She got up from the sofa and said, “What’s all this jazz about a brother in California?”

“Change of plans,” I said, “I was too much the innocent, and you were too much the wronged woman. Without a brother, Fraser might have insisted on hanging around, helping me with the finances himself. And the other Miss Wilson is due back from Greece in two weeks.”

“That’s all well and good, Ed,” my wife said. “But where is this brother going to come from? She doesn’t have one, you know — the real Miss Wilson, I mean.”

“I know.” That had been one of the major reasons I’d hired Miss Wilson in the first place — aside from our general similarity of build — the fact that she had no relatives, making it absolutely safe to take over her apartment during my impersonation.

My wife said, “Well? What are you going to do for a brother?”

I took off the gray wig and scratched my head, feeling great relief. “I’ll be the brother,” I said. “A startling family resemblance between us.”

She shook her head, grinning at me. “You are a one, Ed,” she said. “You sure are a one.”

“That’s me,” I said, “The sweetest man in the world.”

You probably wonder why I’m still alive after all that has happened, and I suppose it is quite a story. I’d been living and training with the exiles for two years before the attempted coup, knowing — as we all knew — the penalty for failure. There were months of hand-to-hand combat and paratrooper training and even some explosives practice before we were ready for the big day, the day we returned to Costanera.

I’d lived the 25 years of my life in the cities and towns and jungle villages of Costanera. It was my country, worth fighting for, every inch of it. We left with the coming of General Diam, but now we were going back. We would drop from the skies by night, join the anti-Diam military, and enter the capital city in triumph.

That was the plan. Somehow it didn’t work out that way. The military changed their minds about it, and we jumped from our planes into a withering crossfire from General Diam’s forces. More than half of our liberation force of 65 were dead before we reached the ground, and the others were overrun quickly. By nightfall we found ourselves prisoners of the army in the great old fortress overlooking Azul Bay.